The National Dialogue Season in South Sudan
By Malith Alier, Perth, Australia
Friday, 16, 2018 (PW) – This is the conscience blasting in episode. The conscience is the inner voice that God whispers to us what is good and bad according to my hymns book of the Episcopal believe.
Moses Obusibiri ten years ago in a workshop told us that there was something wrong with the conscience of the people in what was aspiring to be a country of its own – Southern Sudan. “There is no good advice that the world has not given to your country however, There is something wrong with the conscience of your people and until that changed you won’t see progress,” he said. Well, that was ten good years past.
2008 was truly well into the interim period and the referendum was fast approaching for the people of Southern Sudan to decide their future in the united old Sudan that was believed to oppress them! Come 2018 and the National Dialogue (ND) grapples with the issues which caused bloodshed, displacement and a couple of peace agreements to fix the broken nation some people referred to as “promised land. ” Promised by who?
The National Dialogue proposal on the reorganisation of South Sudanese state makes an interesting read. My eyes beamed and interest rekindled when I peered through it. It made a midday siesta lapse. Some of us were really skeptical when the ND was initiated after the out break of the 2013 atrocities. Its aim and objectives blared since the country was in an open conflict and some parties could not be part of it. Nevertheless, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
Its (ND) work could change the country for good if some of its recommendations are accepted by the country. Not all of them because some are taking the country back to colonial times of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium rule. The issue of reverting back to three former provinces of Equatoria, Bhar El Ghazel and Upper Nile is simply not practical at this stage. It’s not easy to bring diverse interests back to a single table when they already adapted to eating at their own tables – disagreements will spontaneously surface!
The SPLM is the subject of much criticism rightly because every thing which besets the nascent state happened at the watch of the SPLM. It is no secret that the SPLM continue to milk South Sudan to fill its coffers in order to foster its agenda. The ND has rightly put the SPLM on the spotlight on the matters of funding and the fundamental issue of multi-partyism. We witnessed the SPLM and its aligned parties known as parties of national agenda. this parties look like foster children in the SPLM care. ND would like that to cease and to allow the true opposition parties to operate at the same level with the ruling party.
“Fourteen years of the SPLM rule, with the horrendous waste of South Sudanese lives and public resources, means that there is very little room out there, in the country called South Sudan, to give another chance to the SPLM, to continue to run the country on its own. Nor should the SPLM be asked again, to choose its own partners in government, from amongst the other political parties of South Sudan.”
This is as good as it gets. The above quote from ND recommendations also flies in the face of the SPLM reunification mania which until now have been wasting the resources of the country interlocuting in world’s capitals in the name of reunification of the SPLM. How many times can you fix a tool that broke down two or three times? People of South Sudan have found out the hard way that either way, the SPLM on its own, is not good for the country. “When they (SPLM) unite, they loot resources and when they diverge they kill!”
The SPLA also became a joke when the founder, late John Garang passed on. The ND attempt to address the numbers of the SPLA along with its role in modern South Sudan is a welcome positive point.
“However, armies are composed of individual citizens. No individual citizen of any country, can remain in public service for ever. Old age itself, imposes it’s own conditions on individual human beings. It is, therefore, recommended, that the one hundred thousand strong national army of South Sudan being recommended in this document of the National Dialogue, be re-organized, reformed and managed by the existing cadre of the SPLA liberators of South Sudan.”
It’s unbelievable that the oldies soldiers of the SPLA from 104/105 all the way to Ariathdit are still in active duty or payroll of the SPLA.
Read the ND recommendations.
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